


Solitary Boondocks

by CalmSpirited



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, No Entity AU, this was a wild ride lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22758844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalmSpirited/pseuds/CalmSpirited
Summary: Meg goes on a hiking trip, gets injured and meets a hot hobo serial killer. It's the highlight of her life.One story; divided into three chapters for ease of reading.
Relationships: Jake Park/Meg Thomas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	1. Hot

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friend melodramatic-butterfly on tumblr for helping me edit this! Go check them out :knife: or perish.
> 
> First of three chapters. The other two will follow shortly.
> 
> I've had this 80% done in my drafts since July/August of 2019. Started working on it about a week ago and it took me FOREVER to get past the writer's block on this bad boy. 
> 
> Enjoy the wild ride lmao.
> 
> Also my shameless plug - my tumblr is jekwrites.tumblr.com / i take commissions!

For a few moments, Meg found that she could let her worries slip free of her mind and let the singsong sounds of nature and wildlife wash over her and bring her to a sense of inner peace. She could forget all about the stress of her mother’s illness, all about her choices in life, all about her and her mother’s future that was as unpredictable as Mother Nature herself. . .

Despite the weather forecast provided to her by her cabin’s TV, the Blue Ridge Appalachian Guide and her phone, a light drizzle had started to wet the ends of her red braids and the dark clouds approaching on the horizon did not look optimal for sunny weather. A quick look at her map that she had pulled out from the folds of her stuffed backpack told her that she was nearing the town of Buchanan, a town that she was told by the guide was more of a vast expanse of forest with some sticks sticking up out of the ground that the people called  _ business  _ than anything noteworthy.

Unbeknownst to the guide, Meg came from the sticks herself. At this point, she’d rather see some sticks than a skyscraper.

A loud clap of thunder drew her attention upwards, her head snapping back to look up at the sky just in time for fat raindrops to stain her face and clothes with their wetness that instantly started to weigh down her heavy gear on her back. The trail she was walking on lacked foliage overhead, leaving her exposed to the elements and provided no cover nor shade from the bad weather. According to her now rapidly moistening map, there was a small hikers’ station a little less than a mile ahead. Being the track all-star that she was, Meg was confident that she could make it before she got too wet or conditions turned too terrible to continue onwards in.

Folding the map as best as she could before sliding it back into its proper place, Meg adjusted her backpack on her shoulders to make sure it was secure before taking off at a jog, her tennis shoes kicking up dirt and making mud in her wake. The 15 pounds of gear she was carrying didn’t slow her down in the slightest as Meg was used to running through all kinds of terrain with all kinds of weights on her; there was a reason why she was offered numerous scholarships based on her athletic skills alone.

That thought brought Meg a pang of nostalgia as she ran through the forest, the open sky above her closing with clouds and trees alike that reduced the amount of light she had along with her vision. This was supposed to be her and her mother’s vacation, the last time they would have some long quality time together before Meg had planned on attending college several states away and would be gone for a very, very long time.

That was, until, her mother caught the flu this past winter that didn’t go away, and a routine trip to the doctor turned out to be life-saving in catching her mother’s cancer in it’s very early  _ stages _ . They had planned to travel to the Blue Ridge together, but with her mother having chemo and low energy, she couldn’t come with Meg whom she insisted on going anyways-  _ don’t waste all that planning and excitement for the trip on taking care of me _ , she said, and wouldn’t take no for an answer when Meg tried to turn her down.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts and sending newly fallen raindrops everywhere, the young woman kept running along the trail, desperate to make it to that station up ahead before the clouds really opened up and unleashed Mother Nature’s fury down upon her. The dirt beneath her had started to get sloppy and turn into mud, one slick spot escaping her sharp vision and astute mind as she hydroplaned forward. 

Sliding uncontrollably, if Meg hadn’t been the actual victim of her prolonged fall she probably would’ve laughed her  _ ass  _ off at how her body violently twisted and turned and grabbed onto random branches and twigs to keep herself upright. She managed to keep herself from falling on her face in a mud puddle, but her arms and lower legs were covered in dirty sludge, and her ankle twisted painfully in a way that it  _ wasn’t  _ supposed to twist. Crying out in pain, Meg fell on her hands and knees and finally came to a stop on a piece of dry ground, a few spare parts of her gear clattering about her.

“Fuck!” She cried out, pushing herself backwards so that she sat on her rear and cradled her leg to her chest. Inspecting the damage done to her ankle, Meg had twisted her ankle several times before during track-and-field and had a good knowledge of how to take care of it, but being out in the woods offered no cold compress or footrest to elevate the injured limb on or even a splint in severe cases. 

Experimentally putting some weight on her ankle, Meg found that it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the time it did back in 5th grade where she had to be carted off the gym by her teachers and fellow students, but it was certainly starting to swell and become stiff. Weighing out her options, Meg decided that it was best to go ahead and try to call for help, but when she tried to reach for her phone, it was gone. “Where-?” Muttering to herself, Meg twisted around for her device but failed to see any sign of the pink phone.

_ Great _ , she thought,  _ now I’m injured and lost my phone. Let me guess, now it’s time for the serial killer to come out of the woods and butcher me- _

A bark brought her out of the inner dialogue of her demise, and before she could even begin to wonder what the noise was, something large and wet pounced on her and knocked her back uncomfortably on her gear, sending more of it flying out of her backpack. Squealing in shock and sudden fear of the unknown creature landing on top of her, Meg almost threw the animal off of her before she realized that it was just a  _ very friendly  _ dog that was now viciously licking her face. “Hey!” She called out, trying to push the panting animal off of her just so she could sit up and catch her breath. “Hey, buddy, what are you doing here?”

Her question went unanswered as a voice called out from the woods, and the dog on top of her immediately jumped off of her but remained at her side and barked loudly, loud enough to make Megan ears’ ring.

“Sopa!” It was definitely a mascueline voice that called out, evidently one familiar to the dog as they barked loudly again, wagging their tail and aggressively walking around her until the forest shook to her left and a man walked out. Meg watched as the dog  _ quite literally  _ jumped on the man, licking wherever their tongue could reach.

“Good girl, Sopa! Here, get down!” The man gave _ (apparently)  _ his dog a few scratches before he pushed his dog down to its normal height, and approached Meg slowly and cautiously. “You need help?”

Eyeing the man with natural suspicion, Meg looked the man up and down and determined two things: one, he looked like a fucking hobo and two, he was a  _ Hot  _ hobo with a capital H. “Oh, I just took a little tumble down the hill, I’ll be alright.” She saw the man glance down at where she was cradling her ankle and she immediately let go of it to not show where she was potentially injured. Leaning back on her hands to act casual, Meg tried to blow off the pain she was feeling by confusing the man with a sudden change in direction. “Though, I wouldn't mind falling again  _ for you _ .”

Apparently, her flirting had more of an effect on the man than she had anticipated, as the man’s eyes went wide and his lips twitched wordlessly. For a moment, Meg thought that she had broken the man before he sighed and shook his head as if she had just told him a horrible pun. “I think you  _ really  _ need some help.” He held out his hand then, clearly indicating that he wanted to help her up. “You think you can stand?” 

Drawing her bottom lip into her mouth to chew it, Meg  _ really  _ pondered her choices and options about accepting help from a stranger in the middle of the forest: she really didn’t think she could make it all the way to the hiker’s station on her own, and a flash of light followed closely by a clap of thunder signaled that heavy rain was coming fast.

“Thanks, but…” She trailed off, trying to stand on her own but failing miserably with a loud grunt. “Sorry.” She chuckled, “I just can’t really trust some guy I meet in the middle of the woods, ya know?” 

She was surprised to hear him chuckle back. “No, that’s okay. Honestly, I’m really cynical and untrusting myself, I understand. You’re not the first hiker that’s gotten lost or injured on this trail that I had to help out.” He smiled softly at her and her chesticles fucking  _ melted.  _ “Here.” He reached into his green jacket, and actually pulled out a decently sized knife that immediately put her in aggression mode, and laid it beside her hand on the ground. “Feel free to stab me if I get creepy.” 

_ Okay, this dude was either the most chill guy ever or the most confident serial killer ever. _ Either way, Meg took the knife in her right hand and eyed the man with a mixture of suspicion and respect. “You better watch out: I’ve been told I have a  _ deadly  _ right hook.” She had decided she was going to kill this man with horrible puns, and for all intents and purposes that was what she was going to do. 

A soft sigh from the man later, and a hand gently wrapped around her upper arm and helped her to her feet. “Do you think you can walk?” He asked, watching her carefully for any signs of pain.

“Yeah.” Meg hissed, taking one step forward and instantly regretting it. “I-I’m really fine; there’s a hiker station up ahead that I can-  _ ah!”  _ A surge of pain had her nearly collapsing to the ground and the dog distantly barked at her noises of pain as the world faded out of focus for a few seconds.

The man shook his head. “That’s over half a mile from here-” Another thunderclap loud enough to shake the ground beneath them almost threw Meg off balance, and the rain started  _ pouring  _ down from the heavens onto them. “-and I don’t want to risk carrying you all the way there. There’s been a lot of mudslides here recently.”

Leaning on the man heavily, Meg pouted but allowed him to guide her off the trail, back towards the way he came. “So this is how I die, right?” She joked, poking the man in the arm. “You take me back to your creepy cabin in the woods and chop me up into little pieces while your dog watches, hmm?”

Meg had never thought a laugh could sound  _ hot _ , but boy, this man was rewriting the world as she knew it. “Sure, sure.” An arm wrapped around her waist, allowing the man to carry her faster down the gentle roll of the embankment off the trail. 

“Sopa, come on!” He called to his dog who had still been patiently standing at the path. “Soap?” Meg asked, very much confused. “You named your dog Soap?”

“ _ Sopa _ .” The man emphasises. “She’s… well, she’s something I ended up taking home when one of the Rangers found her wandering around. She was really dirty and not in great shape. When I took her to the vets they said that she would probably be put down if I didn’t take her because they told me that she wasn’t  _ “prime adoption material” _ .”

“Aww.” Meg cooed, touched by his story. “You took her home to save her life?”

“That, and she’s so ugly nobody would’ve adopted her. Here.” Stopping, the man released his deathgrip on Meg’s waist to lean her up against a tree so he could unlock the fence Meg hadn’t noticed they limped up to. “I, uhh….” The man suddenly took a sheepish look, akin to a face Meg imagined she pulled when she had rushed through something only to realize she had made several mistakes along the way.

“This is my property. I was going to let you stay at my place until the rain passed.”  _ They say serial killers are real charming, and this guy is starting to check that blank. Either that, or I’m a pushover.  _ Meg knew internally that this was all a bad idea, that this is how people disappear and get murdered-

“This is a horrible idea.” Meg voiced with a shake of her head and reached for the man when he held open the gate for the both of them and Sopa. “But there really ain’t much other choice, is there?”

Jake chuckled again and Meg’s hair wasn’t the only thing that was wet. “There’s always the option of trying to make it to the station… I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

_ A polite serial killer? Possibly.  _ “I’m Megan, Meg for short, and can I just call you Sugar Daddy because you’ve been treating me so nicely?” The man stopped in his tracks, staring straight ahead for a few moments before turning his own drenched head towards her and just… stared at her in just the blankest deadass stare possible. For quite a while he stared, until a clap of thunder reverberated across the landscape so hard that Meg’s hair vibrated. 

“Okay.” He simply said, and turned around to help drag her across his yard where a small, dark house sat just a few hundred feet away.  _ Oohh, a log cabin? I’m either about to be murdered or be a part of a porn movie.  _ And honestly, the second option didn’t sound too bad to Meg: it had been a while since she had gotten any, especially considering the time she spent preparing for college and taking care of her mother left her with no time to look for a potential boyfriend or even a casual hookup.

She snuck a sideways look at the man carrying her, and noticed that he looked too Asian to have the grey eyes he was sporting, which now stuck out to her like the full moon in the clear night sky. Being pressed against him allowed her to feel underneath the thick layers of clothing he was wearing, and discovered that he was actually pretty solidly built; a little on the slimmer side but not a twink in the slightest.

Yeah, she could get behind this. Particularly, behind  _ him. _ “For real though, what’s your name?” 

“Jake.” He answered, moving her arm from around his neck to dangle free at her own side to psychically lift her up the steps on his porch and motioned for her to sit on one of his outside chairs while he reached into his pocket, getting his keys and opening his front door. Sopa, in her rush to get inside and out of the rain, darted past the two through the front door, shaking viciously without caring about soaking everything inside. Jake shouted at his dog to stop, to no avail.

Meg laughed loudly, not caring about how rude she might’ve sounded. “I don’t think she gives a shit, dude.” Jake shrugged like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and then shook his head while reaching for Meg to help her inside. “You should see my cat. Not even water will deter him now.” 

“Oh-! You have a cat? I love cats!” Who doesn’t fucking love cats? Okay, this dude  _ can’t  _ be a murderer if he has a pet cat  _ (or he was a diabolical villain) _ . Forgetting her injuries for a moment, Meg barged in the door, searching for the fabled cat before realizing that she had no idea where anything was in this house- hell, this was a stranger's house and  _ motherfucker on a stick her ankle hurt! _

Jake had to rush forward to catch Meg as she stumbled, her gasp of pain echoing throughout his home. He managed to grab her just in time, but the momentum of her fall propelled them both forward until they both clattered onto his dark brown vinyl sofa in his equally dark house. 

Meg landed half-on top of Jake with his arm still around her midsection, her backpack crushing the man beneath her with a painful grunt. Seeing stars distracted her from feeling up the man beneath her- also the loud meowing noises and the blanket on the couch flying up in her face. 

“Joker!” Jake wheezed out from under her heavy form, rolling her to the side before Meg could get a good impression of  _ his  _ goods that he was packing. “That’s my cat.”

“Oh my God.” Meg panted, struggling to sit upright with all the weight on her back. She managed to do so only after unclasping the straps that held the backpack to her and slipped it free of her shoulders. “You named your cat Joker?” Squinting, Meg scanned the dark room for the furry creature- and found it staring at her on top of an end table tucked away in a corner.

“I should have named him Little Shit. Because that’s all he is.” Meg gwaffed at that comment, forgetting again about her injured ankle and trying to stand up to pet the calico-colored cat before nearly falling flat on her face again. Luckily, the sofa was soft and broke her fall with a soft  _ ooft! _

“You have a wild sense of humor for a hobo.” Now free of the weight on her back, Meg leaned back on Jake’s rather comfy sofa and propped her injured ankle up on the coffee table in front of the couch while Jake got to his feet. He gave her an insulted look. “I am  _ not  _ a hobo.”

“Dude, you live literally out in the middle of the mountains and you dress like a serial killer.”

Jake rolled his eyes which Meg found incredibly funny and sexy at the same time. _ Could eye-rolling be hot? Damn, I must be super thirsty.  _ “I dress like this because it’s usually chilly at night.” With that comment, Jake turned and walked off behind Meg, presumably to get something for her ankle judging by the rattling sounds of pots and pans. Or maybe he was gonna fix her a great dinner with a sprinkling of arsenic to top it off.

“It’s not night time, dumb bitch.” And if to prove her point, Jake flipped on the kitchen lights, illuminating the house in subdued light and revealing that it was still relatively bright outside considering the dark clouds overhead. “And what are you doing?” He better not be getting something to kill her because she still has the knife he gave her and is not afraid to shank a bitc-

Jake walked back around the sofa just in time to stop her thoughts with a wet washcloth in his hand. “I’m getting you a cold compress. Can you take off your shoe?”

_ Oh, thank God. _ “I can try.” She awkwardly curled forward; the hard part of untying her shoe was trying to maneuver around the swelling and having to have Jake help her slide it off from how tight it had become. “You can leave the sock on.” Meg hissed through clenched teeth. The breath she had been holding back came out in a whistle sound as the coldness of the cloth was wrapped around the inflamed joint, and the athletic woman realized just how swollen her ankle was.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, leave that on for now. Holy hell, this kinda hurts worse than I thought, haha.” Looking around the house to distract herself from the painful contrast of her inflamed joints and the cold cloth, Meg let her eyes land on Sopa, laying in her little doggy bed by the door…

“Uhh.” Meg pointed at the area. “Your cat is on top of your dog.”

Picking up his head from being focused on treating Meg’s injury, Jake barely spared the scene a glance, already knowing what was there. “That’s actually how they usually sleep. Especially during thunderstorms.”

“That’s so fucking cute, I wanna take a picture of- my phone!” If Jake hadn’t been holding her down in anticipation of her jumping, Meg might’ve fallen on his coffee table and broke it. “Shit, where is it?” Patting her pocket where she always kept her phone, Meg dug into her pants until she remembered that she had lost it when she had fallen and was in the process of looking for it when Jake found her.

“Fuck me, it must’ve fallen out of my pocket when I fell. I was looking for it when you found me.” 

Jake looked at Meg “Are you sure?” She nodded in confirmation “Yeah, I had just been looking for it when you showed up.” Thunder shook the house along with a hard gust of wind, and the lights flickered for just a moment.

“We’d be fools to go out there and try to find it now.” Jake spoke resoundingly, looking back down at Meg’s ankles and pulling a roll of medical tape from one of his many pockets and tied the washcloth to her ankle. “We can go find it later. I can call it from my phone.”

“Oooh~ Is that a not-so-subtle attempt at getting my number?” Teasing coyly, Meg stuck her tongue out at the man giving her first aid when he rolled his eyes at her  _ \- did he have eyeliner on or did he just have very thick eyelashes? - _ and scoffed. “I’ve never had someone so…” Jake waved his not busy hand into the air as if trying to catch the word he wanted to use.

Evidently, Meg caught it first. “Slutty? Thotty? Thirsty? Whorish?”

“...Thirsty’s a good word for it.”

"Thanks, man."

"Especially towards me. Even back in school girls would only hang on me so much before they got tired of me pushing them off or I started to 'cramp their style'." Meg couldn't tell if Jake was joking with her or not, but the neutrality in his voice made it hard to be sure of anything with him.

"Well, you are pretty fucking hot, even for a hobo." Luckily for Megan, she had no shame in giving compliments just in case she had brought back sour memories. And she could've  _ swore  _ she saw Jake blush lightly before he shook his head and got back up to shuffle into the kitchen.

"People and their kinks, these days." If Jake was trying to speak unheard, he failed miserably since Meg had ears like a hawk. "Why, you get a lot of visitors?" Meg teased, actually somewhat curious if Jake was a known character around these parts.

"You'll be surprised by the amount of people who get lost or hurt and wander onto my property and I end up having to take them to the station." The sound of a fridge door opening and closing punctuated his speech. "That and what I hear when I have to go to Wal-Mart or take my pets to the vet. Please don't say the word 'furry' to me." Meg laughed at the clear distress in Jake's voice.

"I mean, you look like a wild animal." Jake looked offended at that statement and placed the fresh ice on Meg's ankle a little harder than necessary. "I take a bath everyday, thank you."

"Oh, pardon me!" Throwing a hand dramatically over her heart, Meg drew herself into Jake's personal bubble, which the usually anti-personal man found that he oddly didn't mind at all. "I didn't know you were a civilized beast living in the middle of bumfuck nowhere!"

Her jest was met with a full-on laugh that equal parts startled and aroused her. How can a laugh get her  _ moist _ ? Beats her. "You're crazy." Is his simple response while he ties the ice pack to her ankle with the remainder of the medical tape. "I can't believe I'm entertaining someone like you."

"Hmmm, I take it then you don't like people?" Meg assumed, ready to add another tick to her possible serial killer traits for Jake.

"Most people." He emphasized, leaning back on his sofa and removing his heavy boots. "That's probably why I'm alone out in the woods and prefer to have limited human contact."

"More hermit, less hobo, then." Pursing her lips, Meg tilted her head to the side and observed Jake placing his shoes by the door. It was then she noticed that this man loved maghony-everything. "Can I ask you a few questions? And you'll be honest about it?"

Jake gave her an odd expression and scoffed, rolling his eyes and sitting back down on the opposite end of the sofa, hands behind his head and reclining back. A look of disbelief crossed his face, and his shoulders visibly dropped before addressing her "Why the hell not at this point? Shoot."

The woman beamed broadly. "I'm special then, aren't I?"

A nonchalant shrug. "I suppose. I think that's obvious."

“Hmmm…” Meg hummed, taking that as a compliment. "How old are you?"

A thoughtful pause and the narrowing of his eyes demonstrated just how long it has been since Jake’s had to think about that subject. "28."

Meg’s eyes flew wide as basketballs. "YOU'RE 28?!" She exclaimed loudly,  _ absolutely  _ not believing that this man is twenty-fucking-eight years old. He looked at most in his early twenties, not close to hitting thirty!  _ Wow, Meg, way to go hitting on an older man like that- _

“How old are  _ you?”  _ He fires back, and Meg thinks about adding a few years to her own biological clock to make the age gap less noticeable, but decides against it when Jake’s grey stare cuts through all of her lying wires in her brain. “19.”

Now it was  _ his  _ eyes that were wide. “You look older. I would’ve bet money on you being at least 21.”

“Money, huh?” Meg quipped. “A hot hermit with a bunch of spare money to bet with? Boy, I’ve hit the jackpot-”

“And  _ no _ , I don’t kill people and steal their money, just in case you were wondering.” 

Meg was starting to really,  _ really  _ fall for this guy, and she had known him for less than an hour. What a thirsty hoe she was being. “Thanks for letting me know, buddy. Hey- why do you have grey eyes?”

Said grey eyes narrowed again in confusion, eyebrows furrowing along strong frown lines in his forehead. “...Because I do?”

“No! I mean, like - not to be racist, but like, I’ve never seen an Asian person with anything other than brown eyes. Or are they blue? It’s hard to tell, but they look grey to me.” The corner of Jake’s lips tugged upwards in a snort and Meg felt a small wave of relief washed over her that she had somehow  _ not _ offended him. You never know with people nowadays.

“Fair observation. My, uh, father’s mother was European. British, to be exact.”

“That sounds so fuckin’ fancy, dude.” Jake chuckled, a really nice sound to Meg’s ears that was sadly overshadowed by a loud clap of thunder, accompanied by the lights flickered again. “Also, uhhh, where the fuck do you get your electricity and I think it’s about to go out.”

“I have a generator out back.” Meg twists her head around to see where Jake had pointed towards the kitchen. “It runs great but the little shed I have over it has been falling off these past few storms. There was a flood a couple of months ago that knocked it off its foundation. I keep giving it patch jobs but I’m gonna have to get some supplies to replace it next time I go to the store. In fact-” Jake stood up, carefully maneuvering around Meg’s legs to walk towards the back. “-I’m going to check on it. Want anything to eat?”

At the question, Meg’s stomach rumbled loudly. God, it had been  _ hours  _ since she had eaten last. “As long as it’s not poison, hell fucking yeah. Hey wait, aren’t you barefooted?”

“Huh- oh, thanks.”


	2. Scalding

After saving Jake from nearly running outside in a thunderstorm barefoot, eating leftovers that he had said that he had cooked last night consisting of vegetables, meat and some chicken broth and poking and prodding him for more answers, Meg became convinced that if she could bring this man out of the mountains and back home with her to Mississippi, she was going to go full crazy girl on him and keep him chained in her cellar because he was  _ checking all of her boxes. _

A man who could cook, clean, take care of himself, live out in the woods for 6+ years  _ and  _ was attractive? Thank God one of her friends back home had shoved an entire box of condoms into her backpack because she might be needing it after all.  _ If it hadn’t fallen out in her tumble, _ but she doubted it, due to her shoving it all the way to the bottom of her backpack in a haze of indigniancy. 

Meg found that Jake was the polar opposite of her in many ways: he wasn’t bouncing off the walls like her, he seemed content to live one way for many, many years, he was very calm and collected, almost aloof in his demeanor- which only made him hotter to her.

And she was blunt about everything. Very,  _ very blunt-  _ “You ever had someone before?” Time to move on from compliments about being hotter than any K-Pop boy ever to actual propositioning. 

Jake had his back turned to her, hands burying in the sink and cleaning the plates that they had just eaten off of. “What do you mean?”

“A girlfriend...or a boyfriend, I don’t judge, man.”  _ Time to unlock possible tragic backstory.  _

All the noises of scrubbing plates behind her stopped for a moment until a sigh reached her ears. “No. Neither one.”

Oh? Maybe he was like...just sex-netural or something? “Why?”

Meg could  _ hear  _ his shrug. “There was just never anyone I was interested in. I think I told you I don’t like most people.”

“Well… are you even interested in meeting someone?”

“Hmmm.” A shrug in the form of a hum because Jake busied his hands with the dishes again. “I’m not going out to the club to find someone, if you know what I mean. If I meet someone, then yeah, maybe, but if not, then I have Sopa and Joker. I’m content out here.” The word  _ content  _ stung badly in Megan’s consciousness for a reason she couldn’t place. She never understood how anyone could be  _ just  _ content in their life- she had endless energy, always had to be moving, and even being reduced to having to have her foot proped up on the sofa after the table became too uncomfortable for her wasn’t enough to dispel the energy in her.

The final sound of the dishes being stored away in a cabinet shook Meg out of her thoughts and Jake shuffled back to her. “It’s getting late.” He pointed to the analog clock on the wall that read quarter after 11, stunning the athletic woman with how late it actually was.  _ Time flew when you were in the presence of Fabio himself. _

“Oh shit, you right.” Meg looked around at everything around her, eyes landing on her backpack that she knew had an extra change of clothes. How long had she been sitting in dirty clothes? “Fuck, I’m sorry, I probably got your sofa really dirty- I got so caught up with you I forgot I had an extra change of clothes.”

Jake waved a hand at her, dismissing her worries. “It’s fine, it’s vinyl. I can wipe it off. I’ll go get a quick bath- you think you can get undressed without any help?” A finger points at Meg’s wrapped ankle and she gets the message.

“No, I think I can manage! Go clean yourself, stinky hobo.” She playfully sticks her tongue out at him, and he does the cute thing where he narrows his eyes at her in amusement before walking away silently down the hall, leaving her alone to her thoughts and dirty clothes.

_ She could really bust a nut right now _ , she thinks when she hears the water from his bathroom running,  _ but then again I could save it for later _ , she decides and reaches for her backpack and starts undressing.

Her pants proved to be the most difficult to pull off; having to wiggle them down past her swollen ankle and the ice pack proved to be far more painful than she thought it would be, but she noticed with a pleased noise that the swelling had gone down considerably from earlier and even the bruising had not been as bad as it had appeared to be in the first place. Maybe she actually could walk out of here tomorrow and finish the rest of her trip…

But then that would mean she would have to leave Jake behind, wouldn’t it? Didn’t he say he had a phone, though- but then again she doubted a hermit or even herself for that matter would know how to maintain a long distance relationship like this.  _ Maybe I’m just kidding myself with this,  _ Meg thought, unfastening her bra with a relieved sigh and shoving it into her backpack before sliding on a looser, less restrictive shirt.  _ But maybe it would be better- I’m sure Jake doesn’t want to get involved with a girl with a cancer-ridden mother.  _

Meg did feel kinda guilty for being so sex-minded while her mother was home alone, sick and fighting for her life. The only thing saving her consciousness was the fact that her mother refused to let her stay home and waste the reservations that they had made for the trip. Meg found that that was the best trait of her mother: even though while ill and clearly suffering, she still wanted her daughter to have fun and live her life to the fullest that she could.

It made Meg a little sad to think that way, but that was how life was and she couldn’t change it.  _ Also, these cute pants with tiny dogs on them she had packed helped some. _

Repositioning the blanket over her now fully clothed body, Meg had just settled down and closed her eyes when she heard Jake’s voice call out:

“You decent?”

Eyes opening, Meg noticed that she didn’t hear the water running in the bathroom anymore.  _ Wow, that was quick.  _ “Yeah!” She called back, relaxing back under the blanket- well, until her leg hit the knife that she had completely forgotten that Jake gave her. She decided to slip it into her backpack so she didn’t stab herself while sleeping. But something felt… off. Meg squirmed for a few seconds, thinking hard to herself to try and problem-solve the situation by herself. Something just didn’t feel right around her torso and it was bothering her so mu-

Looking down the suspiciously tight neck of her shirt, Meg quickly discovered the source of her discomfort: she had put her shirt on backwards.  _ Deadass. _ Without even thinking, Meg sat up, throwing the blanket down around her thighs and whipped off her shirt and inspecting it to see which way was the correct way to put it on.

It was only when a floorboard creaked and a soft gasp echoed around the room did she realize that she had just ripped her shirt off without even checking to see where anyone was, and now she had just flashed Jake who had just entered the living room himself.

In a towel. Just a towel. Around his waist. Meg couldn’t have planned this any better. Face as red as an exploding tomato from both her own blunder and Jake’s lack of clothing, Meg completely blanked out for a few moments. Luckily, Jake appeared to have succumbed to the same  _ dumb bitch disease _ that Meg had, because they both just staring at various interesting points of each other’s bodies while the seconds ticked by while the pets snored by the front door, ignorant of the sexual tension building in the room.

_ Ignorance is bliss.  _ “Oh, uh, hi, um, resident dumbass bitch put her shirt on backwards and I didn’t think before taking it off to put it back on right, so, uhhh…” Meg stopped herself from rambling on further by doing the simplest thing that her horny brain could think of at that moment: she poked one of her boobs and said very clearly, “Titties.”

Jake deadpanned. “Yes.” 

If Meg hadn’t been so embarrassed, she would’ve laughed at his response. Nobody else spoke for a moment, but then Jake turned and strode back down the hallway faster than any man she’s seen walk before. A pang of disappointment stung in her chest at the wordless rejection-

But then Jake came  _ running  _ back, breathless and looking like he couldn’t decide whether to have a heart attack or a stroke.

  
  


///////////////

  
  


_ Why was he entertaining this woman _ ? Not in the sense of housing her while the storm raged on because any decent human being would do that; but why was he not telling her that he wasn’t interested in the clear sexual innuendos she was sending?

Short answer: No clue. Long answer: She was cute.

Jake had never had the real… urges for sex that most typical teenage boys had growing up. Sure, he masturabted on a regular basis and it felt good, but going out on a  _ date  _ to meet people to maybe form a relationship with them so that they could maybe have sex? A compulsion he lacked. Never even had the urge for a one-night stand. 

His mother had always told him that it all might change when he finds the  _ right  _ person, something that he never really believed in because he just  _ didn’t.  _ Once he had moved out into the woods, Jake was content with his life the way it was and he could’ve lived the rest of his life like that.

_ That was before Sopa and Joker,  _ a nagging voice in the back of his head told him while he stared at Meg’s exposed chest with absolutely no self control _ , for the longest time you didn’t think you really wanted pets until you found them.  _ The truth of the statement, even though pets and Meg were not the same thing, hit him like a ton of bricks: he had always managed to surprise himself by doing things he’d never thought of… like living in the woods in the first place.

Jake turned tail, a brief upwelling of fear taking root in his chest and squeezing his heart while he strode down his hallway back to his room to escape-  _ escape from what? _

Really, he was _ twenty-fucking-eight years old _ , a grown man running away from some cute teenager with pretty boobs that he had formed a deeper connection with than with anybody that he wasn’t related to ever. And it felt  _ nice, good, fucking great _ , honestly, and why should he pass it up because he was  _ content  _ with his life and didn’t want to change it? 

That kind of thinking is what led him to suffer throughout his childhood and up until he was expelled/quit from college. He didn’t like his upbringing, but he had been  _ content  _ to carry on like his father wanted him to until he wasn’t  _ content  _ anymore.

Jake Park was not a coward, and ran back into the living room to tell the woman on his couch just that, amazed that the towel was still around his waist.

“I’ve never had sex before in my life.”

Meg balked at the sudden turnaround of her fortune. She had just conceded to herself that Jake wasn’t interested in hooking up, but here he was quite literally running back to her with that admission. She couldn’t believe that things were working out for her this well and she’d be damned if she was going to let this opportunity pass her by.

“Well…” She trailed off, never having been put in a position of power like this before. If she didn’t know how anti-people he was, she would’ve insisted that he was lying about it. “I have, so I can help you there.” Jake didn’t move from his spot in the entrance of the hallway, so Meg waved him over. “Come here.”

He obeyed, coming to sit at the edge of the couch to avoid sitting on her injured ankle with the damp towel still around his waist. Throwing her shirt on the coffee table, Meg sat upright and pushed the blanket down to her knees and looked back up at Jake.

He was looking at her, absorbing her partial nakedness with his eyes as they flicked all over her body. Jake didn’t move other than the quick rise and fall of his chest, fingers curling into fists on his knees. It really hit Meg then that this man  _ really didn’t _ know what he was doing or what he was actually supposed to do. It was cute and frustrating at the same time, her impatient nature just wanting to get on to the sex but at the same time it was so endearing to have a man completely at her mercy like this- it gave her a bit of an power rush.

She went to situate herself to sit on her hamstrings so she could reach him better, but the burning sensation in her ankle told her otherwise. Deciding that he would have to come to her, Meg reached forward and dragged him forward. “Come here.” Meg repeated, softer this time and much closer than before. She felt his hands and elbows prop himself up by her head as she brought their mouths together, her lips pressing against his in the softest way that she could to encourage him to take a step forward.

He didn’t lean into the kiss, but he didn’t pull away either, he was just…  _ so unsure  _ of everything that was going on that Meg pulled away for a moment to look into Jake’s eyes.

“Are you...sure?” She asked, a little out of breath and steeling herself for a possible let-down. “You aren’t being pressured or anything, I don’t want you to force yourself-”

Jake shook his head, interrupting her. “No, I want this.” The feeling of lust raced through his veins in an intoxicating way that made him crave  _ closeness  _ like never before. Before she had kissed him, he really could’ve walked away from all of this without any regrets of what he would’ve missed out on… but now he  _ knew  _ he wouldn’t be able to. It was so cliche, but he had never felt this way before and he finds that suddenly he’s been  _ deprived  _ of these sensations for his whole life, and he wants to feel it  _ now _ .

Meg smiles at his statement and Jake finds it so cute that his heart leaps into his throat. She drags him back in for a kiss and this time he recopicates as best he could. It’s sloppy and messy, as Meg expects it to be, but it sends tingles down her spine and she sighs into the kiss while Jake gains more confidence and force with every passing moment they spend liplocked.

A warm and calloused hand slides up the side of Meg’s face, finding residence in the damp locks of her hair. His fingers wrapping firmly around the red strands in his grasp, Jake held her close to him as their lips met and molded against one another. Meg’s back ends up firmly implanted into the seats of the sofa with Jake clamoring on top of her, his bare chest rub against hers and sending hot little sparks of sexual energy all down her spine.

Her hands end up locked into his dark, wet hair, tugging hard to get him impossibly closer to her. Jake sighs headily against her mouth, his lips parting and Meg takes the opportunity to slip her tongue over his. His tongue surges forward to meet hers- a bit too eagerly, and they have to break away to awkwardly cough as their gag reflexes protested.

“Sorry.” Jake apologizes, pulling away from Meg just enough to turn his head into his shoulder to cough. “Sorry.” He repeats, and has the  _ nerve  _ to shyly sneak a glance at Meg who had recovered and was now staring at him with a wide smile on her face.  _ He looks adorable,  _ she thinks, and wonders how someone else hasn’t snatched him up already.

“It’s fine.” She remarked, and it truly was. His enthusiasm wasn’t lost on her, and she quickly pulled him back into another searing kiss, moving her good leg to wrap loosely around his waist and her swollen ankle to hang off the sofa. Not the best for a twisted ankle, but at this point Meg just wanted it out of the way. “I’ll show you-” Meg breaks away for a moment to breathe against his lips before slipping her tongue inside of his mouth.

Both of his hands went to cup her face again, but one of those hands speedily descended, calloused fingers trailed down the faintly freckled skin of her shoulder down to her breast, squeezing the globe of flesh gently at first. Meg makes a soft noise into his mouth and Jake squeezes harder before switching to rubbing the pad of his thumb over her hardening nipples.

Moaning softly, Meg practically shoved a hand down to grab the towel around Jake’s waist to undo the offending fabric. After having extreme difficulty finding where the towel was tucked into itself, she ended up just straight-up grabbing his half-hard dick through the towel - not that neither of them complained about it - and Jake jerked on top of her, making a hard noise in the pit of his throat. He pulled away from her to give her a slightly frazzled look.

“Uh…” He started, and then a miniscule smile breaks his reddened face. He looked to say something else, but Meg just took the brief pause to her advantage. Giving her a chance to look down, it was much easier to move her hand from his dick back to his towel, tugging it free from where it had been tucked into his waist.

_ “Ohhh~”  _ Megan purred, dropping the loose towel in favor of wrapping her fingers around his bobbing erection, delighting in the way that Jake shuddered and tightened his hand in her hair. Now that she could tilt her head down enough to get a good look at the merchandise she was holding, it was actually... _ impressive.  _ She’d expect him to be, well,  _ small-ish _ because he was Asian and already on the shorter end of the height spectrum ( _ God, she was hoping she wasn’t being racist but wasn’t it true?!). _

Her eyes flickered up to his face just as his eyes met hers. She found an amazing sensation of  _ want  _ and  _ lust  _ in his gray eyes, his cheeks flushed a cherry red color and his lips parted to exhale heavily against her face. He was absolutely the best-looking thing she had ever seen in her life.

She gave his cock a slight squeeze and watched his eyelids twitched; she smiled ever broader. “You really want me?” She asked, unconsciously biting her bottom lip, asking him the final question that would seal the deal for their night together.

And to her immense joy, he nodded at her enthusiastically while one of his hands traveled down to her waist, slipping his fingers into the waistband of her pants and underwear. “I do. Trust me, I do.” He replies, and Meg finds herself in a liplock again more chaste this time than before, letting go of his dick to wrap her arms around his neck.

“Thank God.” Meg says in a rushed exhale, lifting her hips up to assist him with taking off her pants. “I was about to say, I was gonna be very disappointed if you had backed out.” Getting them down to her knees was easy enough, although it took far longer than she would’ve liked to slide her pants off her swollen ankle and then it took even  _ more  _ time to reposition her ankle to a position that would be out of the way-

She hadn’t been paying attention to Jake and what he was doing, but she suddenly became  _ very  _ aware of his fingers stroking her slick folds with explorative curiosity that left her gasping and her toes curling. “Fuck, you’re so wet. And pretty.” Jake breathed out, setting back on his haunches and staring intently between her legs. Two fingers parted her folds, exposing her leaking entrance to the warm air, and Meg shivered and bit her lip. She was  _ so glad  _ that she had been keeping her pubic hair trimmed despite having zero dating or sex life.

_ “Fuck.” _ Jake breathed out again, breaking his stare from between her legs to look at Meg’s flushed face. Meg watches as Jake’s lips part, throat working for a moment before his voice comes out. “I… I haven’t done this-”

“It’s fine.” Meg reassures, and reaches down to grab Jake’s hand in hers and guides his fingers back to her entrance. “One finger.” She emphasises, and she watches as Jake nods and pulls back all but his middle finger and lets her slip the digit inside. Her walls immediately clench around the intrusion, and Meg suddenly remembers that it’s been awhile since she’s last done this with somebody else. Probably close to half a year-  _ or more _ , and she’s almost forgotten how somebody else's fingers inside of her feel way better than her own.

Sighing loudly, Meg lets go of Jake’s hand to grab her own nipples, squeezing and rolling them to her liking. “Slow at first.” Her whole body shuddered at Jake’s first experimental thrust, wincing lightly as the drier parts of his fingers entered her a bit prematurely. “Not that far yet.”

Jake tore his eyes away from the action going on down below to give Meg a tilted look. He stopped his hand movements altogether when he noticed the pinched look on her face. “Is it too much?”

“You’re…” Meg trailed off for a moment, trying to think of a way to put the feeling into words. “Your fingers aren’t wet enough. Like,  _ I’m  _ wet enough, but you aren’t.” There was nothing more cringey-feeling that having a too-dry  _ whatever  _ inside your wet vagina, something that most men that Meg had been with didn’t realize until  _ after  _ she told them.

The look of understanding that crossed his face would’ve been humorous if Meg had been paying attention to him instead of his finger. “Oh, I’m sorry.” Jake apologized, andt o Meg’s surprise, he pulled out in favor of shoving his middle finger in his mouth all the way to the knuckle and sucking on it. Meg could see his jaw working with his tongue and smiled to herself.  _ What a considerate guy. Wish I could take him home with me. Put him in the box that my dildo’s in and keep him in my closet forever. _

Sitting up a little bit, Meg bravely resisted the urge to squeeze her legs around Jake’s waist as the seemingly helpful act of sucking on his finger went straight to her cunt. “What a gentleman.” She teased, purposefully meeting his gaze before moaning softly with a twist of her nipples under her trembling fingers. She was met with a soft moan in return, muffled by the finger in his mouth that he promptly pulled out with a lewd  _ pop!  _ “Fuck.” Jake swore and rubbed his finger along the outer edges of her folds, gathering even more of her wetness before slipping back inside of her  _ much  _ easier than before. “Better?” He asked, and all Meg can do is toss her head back and groan lustfully.

“Fuck, yeah, dude. Go for it.” And this time his light thrusting felt  _ so  _ much better; granted, saliva wasn’t the best lubricant, but it got the job done long enough for her body’s own lubricant to kick it into high gear and make the saliva redundant. Pretty soon, Meg found herself giving the green light to Jake for him to go deeper, deep enough that his entire finger slid all the way inside her.

Toes curling at the full sensation, it was quickly replaced by the  _ not enough _ feeling and the desire to have his dick splitting her apart in the best of ways. The ginger picked her head up and opened eyes she hadn’t realized she had closed. “Another.” She commanded, and noticed Jake lazily jerking himself off while fingering, an  _ amazing _ sight she had been sorely missing all this time.

Just as quickly as she had given her command, Jake withdrew completely from her and rubbed his middle finger and his ring finger all the way down her folds and up to her clit several slow, painstaking times before slowly entering her again. His ring finger was still just a little bit dry and cooler than the other, but the most overpowering feeling was the bruning, delicious stretching feeling at her entrance that made her toes curl and her hands squeeze her breasts with a loud whine.

“Fuck me.” She whispered, rolling her hips onto Jake’s hand so he would get the message and  _ stop going so damn slow (though in the back of her mind, she appreciated it).  _ “Fuck me.” She said again, louder and looked directly at Jake’s face so he couldn’t miss the memo. “Harder.”

“Harder?” He asked hoarsely, like he was hard of hearing. Meg was about to roll her eyes and repeat herself, but apparently it was a rhetorical question because Jake fingered her  _ harder _ . “Like that?” He inquired, and Meg’s head lolls back with a moan, spreading her legs wider and nodding furiously. “Mmhmmm.” Groaning, she involuntarily clenched around Jake and a small trickle of her slick ran down the cleft of her ass.

“That’s so good,  _ fuck.”  _ His fingers felt good, but as the seconds ticked by, she craved  _ more, bigger- his dick _ , and by God, she was going to get it. Letting go of one of her nipples, she reached down and swatted Jake’s hand away from his dick and began to stroke it herself. “I want you.” She moaned out in a hushed voice, glancing at Jake and watched his face twist into several emotions at once before settling on a wide smile. “I want your dick.” She emphasized, and gave the head of his cock a light squeeze and tug.

Jake made a noise of his own and his hips jerked forward, pulling his fingers from her with a wet squelch. He leans down to kiss her again, their lips pushing messily together until Meg breaks the kiss to point to her backpack. “Gimmie.” She says, making a grabbing motion for the sack on the floor next to the sofa. Jake leaned back and stretched backwards for it, fumbling blindly for it for a few seconds before managing to wrap his hand around the top handle and pulling it towards him.

“Condoms?” Jake asked, hauling the bag up on the sofa with a grunt. “Or are you on birth control or something?”

“Condoms.” Meg replied, unzipping the bag and shoving her hand all the way down to the bottom and pulled out the entire box in one go, sending some of her snacks and other packed items flying without care and then tossing the backpack back on the floor.

Jake snickered. “You have a whole  _ box. _ ”

Meg rolled her eyes at Jake and kneed him in the shoulder. “A friend of mine threw it in here at the last second. I didn’t even realize it until I was leaving. I’m glad she threw it in here now.”

“But still: a whole box. How many guys did she think you would meet?”

Finally peeling a single condom away from the entire pack, Meg carelessly shoved the other condoms back in the box and tossed the box next to the backpack before ripping the wrapper open and handing it to Jake. “None, probably. I hope you know how to put it on, virgin.”

Jake rolled his eyes at her quip. “I’m inexperienced, not ignorant.” And to Meg’s giddiness, Jake  _ did  _ know how to put on a condom and managed to put it in with minimal help and fumbling from both of them. 

“Good.” Meg leaned back, her head hitting the pillow behind her and wiggled her hips as an invitation for Jake. “Come here.” Pulling him close again, they both made out passionately while Jake softly rutted against her wetness. The head of his covered cock moved back and forth over her folds, making Megan all the more  _ impatient _ every moment that he wasn’t inside of her.

Eventually, Meg pulled away, fisting her hands in his hair and forced Jake to look in her eyes. “Inside me,  _ now _ .” She demanded, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him in for another kiss to nibble at his bottom lip. “Or I’m going to punch you.”

“So demanding.” Jake commented, but snaked a hand down between them to guide himself to her entrance anyways. Not being able to look while kissing Meg, it took some help and guiding to finally,  _ finally  _ push the tip of his cock past the tight walls of her entrance. 

_ “Fuck.”  _ They both exhaled at the same time they parted for air, Meg tossing her head back and Jake staring at the place where he and Meg were connected with wide-eyed, rapturous interest. Meg wanted this moment to last forever, but at the same time she needed him to move _ , now _ or  _ she  _ was going to turn into a serial killer.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she raked and dragged her fingers through his hair to get his attention. “Move.” She whispered, a cry dangling off her lips as she rolled her hips against his.

Jake leaned back over her, pressing a soft and lingering kiss to her lips as he  _ finally  _ picked up speed, his thrusts a mixture of unsure jerking and uneven rolling. It took a little while to get used to, but when he got it  _ just right  _ it felt like heaven on earth- more than it already was.

“ _ God _ , you feel so good.” Meg heard Jake whisper into her cheek, his lips firmly planted on her cheekbone and smearing kisses all along her lightly freckled skin. Letting her eyes flutter shut, the woman let her head fall back onto the pillow and lost herself in all of the sensations. “You too.” Meg barely thought to mutter out as she moaned loud enough to be heard over the heavy rain still falling outside.

Lips moved from her cheek to her jawline and then to her neck; Meg let her hands trail from where they were embedded in Jake’s hair to drag her nails down his exposed back, leaving red marks in her wake. “Fuck me harder.” She demanded as Jake assaulted her neck with hickeys that would be hard to explain later to her mother.

Jake pulled away from her and grabbed the soft skin right above her knees, moving her legs from around his waist to sit on top of his shoulders. He then leaned back down to her until her knees were nearly pressing against her shoulders and his face was back into the crook of her neck, finally giving in to Meg’s demands.

“ _ Jake _ !” She cried out, toes curling so hard that her ankle throbbed with pain, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the way Jake was hitting all of the right spots inside of her, graoning in her ear and fucking her in a way that she hadn’t been fucked in  _ months, _ a way that she craved to be fucked so that all of her stress and worries could melt away for a while. The wet sound of skin hitting skin drowned out all the noise from outside and all of the background noise in her head that she had been having since she left Mississippi, leaving her  _ elated. _

Her nails dug crescent marks into the olive skin of Jake’s shoulder as dirty streams of praise left her mouth, telling Jake how  _ good  _ he felt, how good his cock felt buried inside of her, how good he was making her feel and all sorts of other lewd things she had picked up in highschool and by watching porn-  _ listen, I have good fucking taste in porn, okay? _

Pressure and pleasure coiled in her womb, collecting in a warm ball and settling in the depths of her cunt and if her hands weren’t so busy leaving claw marks in Jake’s back, she might’ve reached down to rub at her clit to get herself off.

“I’m close.” Jake grunted next to her ear, his thrusts becoming sloppily and uneven. Meg couldn’t help but feel a slight bit disappointed at the sex coming to an end, but she was honestly surprised that he’s lasted  _ this  _ long. “Yeah?” She said, turning her head so she can nibble on his ear while she talked. After Jake’s affirmative grunt, she purposefully clenched her walls around Jake and took pride in his answering groan, his hands moving to grab at her waist hard enough to leave bruises.

“Cum inside me.” Her hip bones creaked from the force of Jake’s grasp. “I want to feel it. I want to feel your cock inside me as you cum.”

The muscles in his back trembled from tenseness under Megan’s nails.  _ “Oh God, fuck-”  _

“Give it to me, I want it, I want it so bad,  _ Jake- _ ” His cock jerked so hard inside of her that she felt it against her quivering walls. Jake pressed her so far into the couch that she could feel the hard frame press into her back and the warm liquid filling the condom within her was  _ unmistakable.  _ His strangled cry into the crook of her shoulder startled her, but she moved her hands up to his hair, carefully carding through it in a soothing action as he shook and emptied himself into the condom.

“You’re so hot.” She said without thinking, and giggled to herself afterwards because she had just told this guy that she had met  _ today,  _ just fucked  _ today _ , was hot and it was funny in her post-sex mind.

“What?” Jake asked, finally picking his head up and looking at Meg with even wilder hair and half-closed eyes, topped off with a flush across his face that Meg found to be really good-looking on him.

“I said you’re hot.” She repeated, a blush rising to her own cheeks  _ (really, after I practically seduce this guy now I’m blushing?)  _ at her compliment, and couldn’t help but giggle again at the sheepish look that crossed his face. 

“Thanks?” He said as a question, but didn’t leave any room for Meg to elaborate as he leaned forward and captured her lips in a gentle kiss, a hand finally letting go of her hip to cup the side of her face with. “I like you.” He admitted, and Meg gets the feeling that this guy doesn’t really… have any friends to say that to. “I know we just met… today-”

“Trust me, I feel the same.” Meg smiled, glad that Jake was at least being forward like this despite the anxiety fluttering in her chest that he might be about to turn her down and deny her any more opportunity to be with him.

“Well, hear me out first-” He opens his mouth to speak, but then his face twists and a pained noise slips past his mouth; his eyes darts down to where he’s still balls-deep inside of her. Meg understands the situation in an instant and helps to detangle herself from Jake so he can peel away from her long enough to pull out, slip the condom off, and toss it in a wastebin next to the arm of the sofa.

Her clit throbs when she watches the sweat glisten off her partner in the low, fluorescent light as he slumps against the opposite end of the sofa, unsteady hand wiping at his face and brow, and she almost reaches down to touch herself until Jake speaks up again. He takes a quick look at the hand at his forehead and finds it trembling as much as his voice is. “I like you, but I… I live out here. Where are you from, again?”

“Mississippi.” Meg answered, propping herself up on the pillows behind her from where she had slipped down. 

“That’s a long way away.” Jake was still breathless and struggling to keep his eyes in modest places as he runs a hand through his hair to think of what to say next. “I doubt you’ll be able to come up here often.”

For a moment, Meg thought about telling him that her Mom has breast cancer, that she was in remission for almost a whole year, but now its back and starting to spread to her lungs and her prognosis is dim at best, but she doesn’t think that is what a rational person would say because saying that might make her sound desperate, so she goes down a more safer path. “I can give you my phone number. Please tell me that you  _ at least  _ really have a phone, hobo?”

Jake rolled his eyes, but smiled softly, nodded and ran hand down his face. “Surprisingly, I do. You really want to do a long-relationship thing?” He asked, a genuine look of curiosity and something else that Meg can’t place crossing over his face.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be, like… phone sex. We can just be friends who, like, hook up every now and then.” The suggestion is out before she can stop herself. Her heart dropped to her stomach as Jake didn't answer her right away, face remaining neutral as the gears turned in his head-

“Okay.” He replies after a few agonizing seconds, inhaling deeply and nodding his head with great reverence. “Okay. I can try that. I’ve never had a friend before, but I can try that-”

“You’ve never had a friend before?!” Meg exclaimed, her eyes wide. “You really are a fucking serial killer.”

Jake rolled his eyes yet again. “If that’s what you want, sure. I-” Suddenly, Jake stopped talking and gave her a look-over that made a rush of heat return to Meg’s neglected nethers. “-you didn’t cum, did you?” Jake asked, but he’s already moving back over to Meg, softly reaching for her thighs to part them. For a brief moment, she considered turning him down but her pussy protests by clenching in a wave of heat.

“No.” She shook her head and leaned back as Jake resituates himself so that he’s laying down in between her legs, his legs dangling off the end of the sofa and his face… “You don’t have to!”  _ But I would really love it if you ate me out!  _

Jake pressed a kiss to Meg’s inner thigh that had her  _ quivering.  _ “Oh no, trust me, I have to.” 

He ate her out like she was holding a loaded gun to his head.


	3. Lukewarm

Meg was honestly surprised when Jake called her a few days after she got back, and even more surprised that her mother didn’t ask what was wrong because she nearly  _ screamed _ when her phone went off while she was relaxing on her bed.

_ “Roxanne, Roxanne~ all she wanna do is party all night~” _

She almost couldn’t believe it when she saw his number pop up on her screen. “Jake?” 

“I’m sorry.” Was the first thing he said, catching her off guard. “I meant to call yesterday but Sopa ate half of my sock and then I had to clean up her dog vomit.”

“Oh. Oh, no, it’s fine! I… honestly didn’t expect you to call.” Meg tried not to sound too shocked or imply that Jake was a shitbag, but it  _ probably  _ came out like that.

“I almost didn't.” Jake admitted, and Meg’s heart swooned at the sound of his chuckle over the phone. “I hate to admit it, but I was really nervous to call you.”

“Trust me, dude, I almost peed myself when you called.” Her laughter echoed in her small room, and for the next hour Meg felt lighter than she had since she and Jake had spent that night together. It made her feel like the gloom and doom that had been looming over her head finally went away for a while.

He called her several days after that, and several days after that, and several days after that until it turned into a few days and then every other day and then nearly every day-

“Your mom sounds cool.” Jake is laughing at something that she said, but she suddenly can’t remember after what Jake says next. “I’d like to meet her.” It dawns on her that they’ve been talking for almost two months now and that she’s been avoiding bringing up the subject of her mother’s cancer, but now Jake had unknowingly touched upon it. Meg paused, because by the time Jake meets her mother, she’ll be in no shape to see him.

Hell, they had just found out today that the tumors had spread to both of her lungs now and that was the reason why she was coughing up blood  _ every single fucking day. _

“Meg? Are you still there?” A sob broke first on her end, silencing Jake on the other and the truth spilled from her red lips about her mother, about how sick she was and how  _ unfair  _ the world was that her father left because he didn’t want to be a father, didn’t want  _ her _ and left her mother to raise her by herself and now the only family she has is slowly wasting away in front of her and there was nothing she could do about it. And not to even mention that all of her old friends had either gone off to college or drifted away to party or to not be  _ ‘involved’ _ in Meg’s family illness. 

Jake probably didn’t need or want to listen to Meg’s rambling, but he stayed on the line for well over 3 hours. He talked her down back to a sticky and salty post-crying state, even offering to come down out of the woods if she ever needed someone to help her. She turned him down at the time, saying that it wasn’t necessary and then she would have to explain the whole long-distance-relationship thing to her mother and she didn’t want to burden the woman with thinking that she had hooked up with a serial killer.

And then after that call, things were okay for a while. Her Mom was seemingly on the mend, this new round of chemo helping to shrink several of the tumors in her lungs. Some days her mother didn’t have trouble breathing or coughing up blood. They even went out to eat at a restaurant or two, once even convincing her mother to leave her wig at home in favor of simply wearing a hat so her hairless head didn’t get cold. Some people gave them looks, but Meg had knives in her eyes and anybody who stared for a second too long was metaphorically sliced and diced.

But all goods things come to an end, sooner rather than later.

The cancer came back less than a week after her Mom’s last round of chemo, and Meg counted herself lucky that she was there when her mother collapsed on their living room floor, clutching her chest and heaving in desperate gulpfuls of air. Turns out, there had been a small, insidious tumor growing on the back of her heart that the chemo had just  _ barely  _ missed. It had just grown big enough to put severe pressure on her heart, and it was  _ inoperable. _

After that night, her mother was hospitalized, oxygen tubes put into her nose to help her breathe while her heart beat against the tumor growing on it. The doctors told her the only thing that would save her was a heart transplant, but finding a matching donor this quickly was a one in a billion chance, and that she would be fairly far down on the list of transplant recipients.  _ Children come first,  _ the doctor said,  _ and your mother is pushing 45.  _ It made Meg feel like just because her mother was  _ older  _ that she was unimportant. But she knows her mother would gladly give up a new heart for a child; any child - if it would save their lives.

The first night was gut-wrenching. Meg felt like a live wire while her mother faded in and out of lucidity. The nurse had left after giving her mother some morphine to help her sleep off some of her never-ending chest pain when she finally decided called Jake, her leg tapping nervously against the tile she was pacing on right outside the room her mother was in.

By some  _ miracle _ , Jake answered her, Sopa barking in the background. “Meg?” Jake answered sounding like a cute, grumpy cat who was secretly plotting your downfall despite being well cared for. “Wha- what time is it- what the  _ fuck  _ time-”

“Mom’s in the hospital.” Meg held a hand over her forehead, trying her hardest not to break down and cry in the hallway. “There’s a tumor on her heart and they can’t take it off and- and-” Meg inhaled, tears dotting at the corner of her eyes as the harsh reality of the situation set in:

Her mom was dying and she was  _ alone _ . Alone in the whole state of Mississippi and nobody would help take care of her after her mother died. She gave up college to help care for her, and in the process she had passed up on her one opportunity to have a stable and successful future. Meg looked back at her comatose mother on the bed, and felt so,  _ so  _ alone. Once her mother died, she would have  _ nothing, be nothing _ .

“-they said they only thing that could save her was a heart transplant but there isn’t a suitable donor, there  _ isn’t one, Jake _ -”

“What hospital?” Jake spoke over her, and Meg answered him before she could think about it. And she kept not thinking about it and went on talking about how this was different than before, that the tumor didn’t respond at all to the emergency chemo that they gave her and that it was putting so much pressure on her heart that she’s already had one heart attack and was sedated-

Meg doesn’t remember it, but the nurse came to up to her to stop her as her pacing had escalated to running up and down the hallway, escorting her back to her mother’s room where she fell asleep laughing while on the phone with Jake, listening to him trying to get Sopa off of his bed because she hadn’t had a bath in a while.

It was after noon when she woke up to her mother hoarse voice conversing with another voice, male and very, very familiar-

“Jake?” But she already knew the answer, and Meg buried her face into her jacket when her mother asked her how long had she been keeping  _ this handsome young man  _ a secret from her, her voice so strained and hoarse that it took all of Meg’s willpower in her to laugh instead of cry. 

“Remember the trip to the mountains we were gonna take, Mom? But you were sick and you told me to go by myself instead? Well, I met this mountain man/hobo/ serial killer-” The wrinkles that had prematurely formed on her mother’s face crinkled up in a laugh as Jake rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Her mother was only awake for a couple of hours at most, and after the morphine kicked in again Meg asked Jake how he had gotten to the hospital so fast. She shoved him in the shoulder for giving her a bullshit answer of  _ “A private jet, duh.”  _ Turns out, though, it wasn’t a bullshit answer.  _ Turns out, Jake came from a really fucking stacked family like holy shit, his family could probably buy the whole hospital they were at!-  _ even though he was. quote en quote,  _ “disowned for personal conflicts” _ .

She didn’t feel so bad about keeping her mother’s illness a secret for as long as she did after hours of talking to Jake in person about his own family life. Meg made Jake tell her about the actual private jet he flew on to get to her so fast and kept asking what kind of snacks they had on there…

/////////////

Her mother passed away two mornings later, and it wasn’t peaceful at all like how it was said to be in all of the books and articles that she had read about when a loved one died. 

Meg had been looking lazily at things on her phone with Jake equally lazily looking over her shoulder for the better part of the morning. Her mother had been in and out of consciousness for a few hours prior, then suddenly seized up ramrod straight, and reached out for Meg and called her name. She then promptly  _ gushed  _ blood out of her mouth and fell back against her hospital bed, the heart monitor beeping rapidly before the dreadful tone of a flatline hurt her ears. All Meg saw was  _ red _ ; bright red blood everywhere, on her, the bed, the floor, the nurses and doctors who had rushed in to do  _ something  _ and all over Jake who struggled to drag a hysterical Megan out of the room so the doctors could tend to her mother.

But the moment her mother fell back against the bed, she was dead. The tumor on her heart had grown so rapidly in size that her heart literally exploded from the pressure. The nurses had to give Meg  _ two  _ valiums to get her to calm down enough that she wasn’t screaming and crying anymore and to change out of her bloody clothes. She found herself numb and cold for the rest of the day, Meg doesn’t protest when Jake leaves her in the hospital lobby to get her things from their mother’s room, she doesn’t joke that Jake’s a serial killer when he asks where she lives so he can take her home, she doesn’t eat anything that Jake makes her, doesn’t sleep that night- and Jake doesn’t either.

They both end up watching the worst TV shows to ever exist that night, huddled up together on the sofa under piles of blankets slowly thawing from their trauma inflicted earlier. Eventually, the clock strikes 6 a.m., and Meg finally speaks up. 

“You can leave when you want. I’m not helpless.” She’s expecting him to leave like everyone else in her life has. Her mother just died, her father is non-existent, all of her friends have either gone off to college and are M.I.A, the friends that didn’t go to college don’t speak to her anymore, even the close group of friends who had put the condoms in her bag in the first place had ditched her when she started skipping girls night out to care for her mother.

“I’m not leaving.” Jake spoke up. Meg doesn’t register it at first, until a hand softly cupped her face and turned her to face Jake directly. For the first time since the night they spent together in Jake’s cabin, they kissed and Meg found herself suddenly missing everything that they had had together. “Even if you had another relative-”

“I don’t.” Meg muttered against his lips, and Jake’s arm wrapped around her waist. “I have  _ nobody-” _

“-I wouldn’t leave.” He reaffirmed, and kissed her again, longer and more passionate this time. “I love you.” And Meg feels a small spark of life return to her, something she thought was extinguished with her mother’s passing.

She leapt on him, wrapping her arms around his neck and peppering his lips with kiss after kiss, exchanging words of love and affection with him until they both finally passed out on the sofa, the theme song of  _ Good Morning America!  _ playing in the background.

\-----

Meg used to love her and her mother’s small house, having memorized every small nook and crack and cranny, but now everything reminds her of her and she found it practically unbearable. The warm red and pick colors of her room that reminded her so much of her mother’s warm attitude did nothing but remind her of the blood that gushed from her mouth when her heart burst. She had Jake help her drag her mattress into the living room because she couldn’t sleep in her room and certainly not her mother’s room.

It’s over a lunch of the last of the leftovers of a chicken pastry meal with some veggies on the side that Meg reaches across the table and rubs her fingers over the back of Jake’s hand. “I don’t think I can live here anymore.” Meg admitted, and it’s one of the hardest things she’s had to do. “I don’t want to give up this house, though. The best thing that Mom taught me was that having your own house and land is the best thing you can have because only the Government and God Almighty can take it away from you. But, I just… I see Mom everywhere I go, everything reminds me of her.” She even packed up most of her mother’s stuff so she wouldn’t have to see it anymore, but then seeing what’s left of her mother tucked away in boxes made her heart ache and she had to unpack some of it.

Threading his fingers with hers, Jake swallowed his bite of food and nodded in agreement. “It’s your house, you can do whatever you want with it. But it’s the same with my place. My mom is watching it now but she can’t stay there forever.”

“And as much fun as I had with you that day on the hiking trail, I don’t think I can live out in the middle of the forest like that. I like my Internet and Popeyes, thank you very much.”

Jake hummed, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “It seems we have come to a crossroad: same problem, different directions.”

“Well…” Even four days old, the chicken was still really damn good. “Mom had thought about renting out this place. She had been saving up money all my life so she could buy a nicer house, but most of it gone to pay medical bills now. You could do that, too.”

“Hmm.” Jake downed the rest of his water in one go, and gave Meg’s hand a squeeze before he pulled away to put his plate and silverware in the sink. “I could. There’s a lot of hikers that go on that trail.”

“It can be their fuckhut.” Meg laughed out loud at the disgusted look that crossed his face at Meg’s idea of his house being turned into a  _ fuckhut  _ like you’d see in cliche horror movies- but he doesn’t turn the idea down.

“And you think whoever you rent it out to won’t fuck in  _ this  _ shack?”

“Listen, this is prime real estate! Only the well-to-do people would live here!” Megan laughed, a deep belly laugh and flicked a piece of chicken into Jake’s thick hair that he failed to feel. Only when he turned around and it slipped down to dangle in front of his eyes did he realize it. He sent it flying back to Meg with a disappointed look on his face.

_ As long as I can throw chicken at him,  _ Meg thought as she ducked,  _ I think I’ll be okay. _


End file.
